I look at him again, tempted to just be taken home and made to feel good.
But this afternoon, I was at my best friend’s place, where I caught her being kissed long and hard by her guy, a kiss so long and hot, he was murmuring sexy stuff to her the whole time, telling her he loved her, in a voice that was deep and tender, and I wanted to cry.
My insides are still warm and sensitive remembering, and not even dancing for a full night has successfully made me forget how truly loveless I feel. After seeing the way my best friend is kissed, really kissed, and after knowing she will have less time for me now that she has other priorities with her new and beautiful family, I’m starting to feel like I will never, ever find the kind of love that they have. She was always responsible, always a good girl, but I am . . . me.
The fun one.
The one-night stand.
“Come on, Blondie,” he urges in my ear, sensing my indecision.
I sigh and turn. He pulls me close, and he looks at my mouth as if ready to convince me with a kiss. I’m a toucher. Brooke calls me her love bug. I love closeness, contact, crave it like I crave air. But I never really feel any man’s touch reach past my skin. Yet I’m always tempted because I keep thinking that THE ONE is right around the corner and I can’t help but try.
Leaning over and fighting the temptation to kiss one more frog, I search for the last of my conviction and say again, “No. Really. Thanks. I’m going home now.” I’m tucking my bag under my arm, readying to leave, when a low rumble causes the tinted wall-to-wall windows to reverberate.
The doors burst open and a couple walks inside, soaking wet, the woman shaking her damp loose hair, laughing.
“Omigod!” I cry, my stomach plummeting when I realize it’s fucking raining.
I run to the door when a man grabs the handle with a black-gloved hand and gallantly pulls it open for me. I almost stumble outside, and he grips my elbow to steady me. “Easy,” he says in a rolling voice as he steadies me on my feet, and I blink desperately across the street at the light blue Mustang. All I have in my name. All I have to sell because I desperately need the money and who will want it now? It’s a convertible and a little old, but it’s as cute as it is unique, with white interior seats to match the tent top. But now it’s outside in this rain, with its top down, becoming my very own Titanic with wheels.
My entire life is sinking right with it.
“I assume by that sad puppy-dog look on your face that that’s your car,” the rolling voice says.
I helplessly nod and lift my eyes to the stranger. A flash of lightning cuts through the distance, illuminating his features.
And I can’t speak.
Or think.
Or breathe.
His eyes grab me and won’t let go. I stare into their depths while also registering that his face is stunning. Hard jaw, high cheekbones, strong forehead. His nose is classic, sleek, and elegant, and the lips beneath are full and curved, firm and . . . god, he’s edible. His dark hair flips playfully in the wind. He’s tall and broad shouldered and dressed in dark slacks and a dark turtleneck that makes him look both elegant and dangerous.
But his eyes.
They’re an indecipherable color, but it’s not the color, it’s the stare, the incredible shine. Framed with thick black lashes, his eyes shine as brilliant as the brightest lights I’ve ever seen. As they quietly assess my features in return, those narrowed eyes feel as powerful as X-rays, and they seem to be sparkling especially because I—me—have somehow done something to amuse this man, this . . . fuck, I have no name for him. Except Eros. Cupid himself. God of love. In the flesh.
I used to think Cupid used an arrow but I don’t feel as if I’ve been pierced by an arrow. I feel like I’ve been hit. By a rocket.
As I keep standing here, floored by the over six feet of total hotness before me, he grabs my keys from me with one gloved hand and puts his other free one on my hip to hold me in place. And I feel it. I feel the touch race down my hips, knotting in my stomach, pulsing in my sex, straight down my thighs, curling my toes. “Stay here,” he says into my ear, then he pulls up the collar of his turtleneck until it becomes a hood in the back, and he runs across the street.
I watch him head to where my car is getting soaked. The wind whips through the streets so hard, I have to use both hands to try to flatten my skirt so it doesn’t fly up to my middle.
“Put the top on!” I force myself to yell through the pounding rain, suddenly as determined as he is to save my car.
“Princess, I got this!” He leaps into the front seat, turns on the car, and the top starts coming up until it . . . doesn’t.
It gets stuck.
After a squeal of protest, the fucker starts coming back down.
“ARGH, SHIT!” I hurry into the street and suddenly the drops of rain bombard me like little cannon balls, soaking me in a second. I swear I want to yell Fuck you! at them. My car, the one thing in my life that hasn’t been shit on, is being ruined and I want to scream.
“Are you kidding me? Get under the roof!” The guy leaps out and then pulls off his sweater in one quick jerk. He spreads the material over my head, using it to shield me from the rain while he herds me back to the small awning over the building entry.
“No! I’ll help you. My precious car!” I cry and push at his chest, trying to get him to back off, but he’s a head taller and built of steel.
“I’ve got your car,” he promises. He hands me his soaked turtleneck and adds, “Hold this,” before he runs back out.
He’s wearing a white crewneck undershirt, and it clings to his sculpted torso as he tries to manually override and pull the top of my car back in place.